Political and religious commentary from a liberal, secular, humanistic perspective.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

The New Dark Age

A new "State of the Bible" poll via the American Bible Society reveals that about 19% of the people believe the Bible to be God's word. The number of people who reject such a notion and see the Bible more as a book containing interesting stories, has risen from 10% in 2011 to 19% in 2014.

What's really hard to believe is that 19% still hold to the nonsense that this book has some special divine claim.

As for the other 62%, I don't know. Perhaps they don't give a flip one way or the other.

The U.S. House of Representatives, dominated by Republican nogoodniks, has passed Paul Ryan's budget which would balance the books on the backs of the poor and the middle class. It's hard to imagine that the Senate will go along, and I'm certain that the President will treat it like the horrid mess it is and flush.

These same Republican nogoodniks also voted against a bill which would have adjusted more equitably the pay women receive for doing the same work as men. Equal pay for equal work is the idea. Republicans, continuing their war on women, said to hell with that idea. They said "We don't give a damn whether women are treated as equal to men or not!"

The quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers is under investigation by Miami police for an alleged sexual assault that happened around the first of the month. What is it with these NFL playes? It seems like way too many of them are nothing but thugs and gangsters.

Once in awhile, a nogoodnik gets his due. In Boston, a man parked his BMW in front of a fire hydrant which, as we all know, is illegal. Unfortunately, for him, a fire broke out in the neighborhood. The firefighters, in order to get a hose to the hydrant, broke out his windows. His car was not treated kindly. He also got a $100 fine. Yea!

Once again religious stupidity rears its ugly head and our media thinks this is "news." So, we read about a 4-foot statue of the Virgin Mary outside of a Roman church in Indiana which is supposedly weeping tears. Hell, even the pastor doesn't believe it, but people keep coming from all around, taking pictures of this wetness (doubtless caused by the cold and melting snow). Another sign of the dark ages: people kneeling to pray in front of the statue of a mythical figure thinking that a cold stain on her face means the statue has come to life in a miraculous way and thus somehow shows that there really is a god.

But why not? Every time the faithful go to mass, they're told that the bread and wine actually turns into Jesus' blood and flesh: Which they then drink and eat. Hail Mary!

Jim DeMint, the blowhard ex-Senator from South Carolina, claims "big" government did not play a role in eradicating slavery. It was, says dimwit DeMint, the "conscience of the American people" and not the federal government that ended slavery. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who died in that bloody conflict. The "conscience" the southern American people thought slavery was just dandy. What a doofus!

We need more floods if they'll cancel the stupid movie about the biblical nutcase, Noah. It did happen that way in Exeter, England. The Vue Cinema flooded overnight because of a faulty ice machine and at least one screening of the movie was canceled. Who said there was no god?

Mike Huckabee is truly a moron; a Southern Baptist preacher who is an ignorant fool and parades his ignorance like a drunken goose. His latest misogynist comment was really funny (Ha, ha). Here's the difference between men and women in his view: Men like to go hunting and fishing with other men. Women like to go the bathroom with other women.

Idiots in Iowa: Joni Ernst is a Republican Senate candidate. She wants your vote because, as she says, "I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut the pork."

Then an Independent Senate candidate, Bob Quast, has an ad where he waves a Glock and threatens to blow off the balls of the person who murdered his sister or anyone who tries to hurt his daughters.

Hillary Clinton was speaking at a meeting of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino in Las Vegas when a woman walked down the aisle to about the sixth row from the front and threw a shoe as Ms. Clinton.

Ms. Clinton ducked and no harm was done. The woman was arrested.

But please tell me how someone like that could get so close to the former Secretary of State and First Lady. Did they not have any security available or were those responsible upstairs drinking and screwing around?

It was one of those high-powered NRA events what with the ever-so-serious sociopath, Wayne LaPierre, warning everyone that the Apocalypse would come if everybody in the good ol' USA didn't have a closet full of every kind of weapon available, when one of the attendees shot hisself.

"Freedom," said Pierre,"it's what the founders wanted. We should be able to shoot ourselves anywhere in our bodies. Just check the 2nd Amendment!"

Well, he didn't say that, but just about.

Rush Lumbaugh, or as I refer to him, Mr. Limburger, is all upset that CBS is planning to replace David Letterman with Stephen Colbert. Actual, Limburger is having what we used to call a conniption fit. He's freaking out, which is the one thing he can do really well. Well, other than abuse drugs.

This action by CBS, rails the Cheese, means "CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatism. Now it's just wide out in the open." Blah, blah, blah.

First of all Limburger doesn't know diddly squat about the American heartland. He doesn't know diddly squat about anything. But he can make a lot of noise. That's what cheese does when ingested in enormous quantities in a man with an enormous head, with an enormous ego, and with an enormous ass and nothing to show for it except the smell. Of limburger!

Harvard University has announced that after extensive scientific tests, scientists believe that the so-called "Gospel of Jesus Wife" is not a forgery. It's real. The thing is a piece of papyrus no larger than a small postcard and contains just a few lines, a couple of which seem to indicate Jesus is talking about his wife.

As Karen L. King, professor at Harvard Divinity School notes, this does not necessarily mean that Jesus was married, but rather that some early Christians thought he was.

Problems abound. The language is Coptic. It may be from the sixth to ninth centuries or perhaps the fourth century. In other words, its not even as close to the purported events as are the accepted gospels. Furthermore, we know that as the church grew so did the legends and stories. So this may be a monk's wet dream and nothing more.

Also, in the early centuries, we can account for as many as 200 gospels all presenting a different picture of this "Jesus" and all beloved of the communities which produced them. Again, this is to be expected for the Jesus of the traditional gospels and the others was not a real person but was created to give bones to the Christ of Paul; Paul's Christ being a heavenly figure, not an earthly one.

So, this fragment is essentially much ado about nothing. Just like most of the rest of the Bible.

One of the big "missions" of the Koch Brothers is to do away with the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

But they got a huge chunk of change from the very thing they're trying to drown. According to Joan McCarter, writing for the Huffington Post, "Congress created a $5 billion temporary reinsurance fund in the Affordable Care Act, to subsidize the cost to employers for providing ongoing coverage for people who retire before Medicare eligibility. The Kochs, of course, took a chunk of that."

Harry Reid noted that this reinsurance program "helped the company pay health insurance costs for its retirees who are not covered by Medicare..." In truth, Koch Industries got $1.4 mil from the feds.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Sam Clovis is also from Iowa. God, if only we could keep Iowans in Iowa but they all seem to want to live in Washington and work for the government they hate! I don't get it.

Anyway Clovis, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is a Republican (naturally) running for the U.S. Senate. He says that a bunch of Congressional Republicans would like to impeach the President but they are afraid they would be called racists. Well, Clovis said they won't go through with it because of the color the president's skin (1/2 white ya know) and they're jittery that the media would have a field day making fun of them.

Clovis, naturally, doesn't appear to know of any reason why Mr. Obama should be impeached. I'm not even sure he knows what that means.

Way down in Louisiana we got another winner, a good ol' boy Republican Congressman who talks a lot about the importance of family values. In fact, that's how he got elected - 'cause he was a family-values person!

Mr. Vance McAllister is his name and y'all should know that he got caught cheating on his wife the other day. So, per the usual, he's begged forgiveness from god, his family, his friends, his enemies, his golf buddies, his golf cart, his cat, his dog ... well, you get the picture!

Did Mr. McAllister resign? Nah. He's got those family values, ya know. Instead, he fired his girlfriend who just happened to work for him.

Oh, and he didn't ask forgiveness from his girlfriend's husband.

Maybe this will help us here in Florida. We've got a big problem. Somehow we've got to get rid of our nogoodnik governor. And here's a ray of light. The Tampa Bay Times printed an editorial dissing the governor. No punches were pulled.

Rick Scott, said the Times, has "In three years ... done more harm than any modern governor, from voting rights to privacy rights, public schools to higher education, environmental protection to health care. ...

"This is the tin man as governor, a chief executive who shows no heartfelt connection to the state, appreciation for its values or compassion for its residents. Duke Energy is charging its electric customers billions for nuclear plants that were botched or never built. Homeowners are being pushed out of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and into private insurers with higher premiums and no track records. Federal flood insurance rates are soaring so high that many property owners cannot afford the premiums but also cannot sell their homes. The governor sides with the electric utilities and property insurers. He criticizes the president rather than fellow Republicans in Congress for failing to fix the flood insurance fiasco they helped create.

In Scott's Florida, it is harder for citizens to vote and for the jobless to collect unemployment. It is easier for renters to be evicted and for borrowers to be charged high interest rates on short-term loans. It is harder for patients to win claims against doctors who hurt them and for consumers to get fair treatment from car dealers who deceive them. It is easier for businesses to avoid paying taxes, building roads and repairing environmental damage."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Let's hope the good folks of Florida will get rid of this crookedTexas transplant, the man responsible for the largest Medicare fraud in the history of the world!